The NCGIA was founded in 1988 as a National Science Foundation centerfor research in geographic information and its related technologies. The Center is based at three sites in the United States: here at Buffalo, at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and at the University of Maine. Today, the NCGIA continues as an independent consortium specializing in research, education, and outreach in geographic information science.

The Buffalo site of the NCGIA (NCGIA-Buffalo) is an organized research unit of the University at Buffalo, facilitating an active and interdisciplinary research community. NCGIA - Buffalo manages the Buffalo portion of the national center, supports a range of other research grants and programs, and coordinates GI Science activities on campus. NCGIA-Buffalo, currently has 24 official members, distributed among 9 departments in 4 schools. However, the UB Geographic Information Science community is even broader than that, involving nearly 60 UB faculty in over 20 departments or similar units. NCGIA-Buffalo also coordinates the University's participation in the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS), and in the New York State GIS Coordinating Committee